Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I have been experimenting with different brushes and setting in Illustrator, it has been fun and challenging. I have wanted to create patterns for quite a while so I have been messing with that too.
I love fabric :) and a great tool for fabric lovers is Spoonflower, where you can create your own or buy other people's custom designs pretty darn awesome.. especially when you consider the alternatives. I have been starting out with flowers....which are actually pretty difficult when they aren't quirky and cute. Then I decided to draw some birds and this is what happened.......

She's fun and stylish with her hat

Here is the crazy pattern that has the same flowers as the bird with hat

So I'm not really happy with the repeat or lack there of or the colors but it's a start.

Then these are the quirky flowers I did just now with 2 different background colors.

Maybe I will do a little "how to" post and show you my pattern making process :)

As always I'm working on a few different things at once, I get easily distracted/frustrated so new projects are always in the works. I hope to be done with a new drawing by next week, I'm quite excited :)

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

One of my most favorite things to do especially when I'm burnt out is go to art museum to be inspired.
One of my favorite genres is Impressionism which I got a wonderful dose of yesterday at the Kimbell.
I don't know what it is about Renoir and Monet that resonate with me so deeply but every time I get to see their work it makes me so happy. Like a conversation with an old friend you haven't seen in forever.
I mean not many people can make onions beautiful and interesting at the same time.

I guess I am comforted by the fact that they struggle and were not always happy with their work. Like this painting by Degas for example, he painted the leg of the ballerina (tending to her stocking) over and over, numerous times until he got it right.

So I got swept up in the pop culture phenomenon that is the Hunger Games. I really like Jennifer Lawrence Jennifer Lawrence, even though she is young and hasn't been in many movies, I think she has a really commanding presence and is going to do more awesome work in the future. I basically started reading the books because she plays the main character in the movie and because my friends that normally don't read young adult sci-fi stuff were reading it. I thought over all the series was kind of sad and dark, granted it's about kids fighting to the death and war so there you go. Anyway after I finished reading it and saw the movie, I wanted to do something happy to counter all the craziness that is the book series, so I drew Katniss and Peeta, together and happy in a tree. I was going to tweak it and color it digitally, but then inspired by the great artists of the past I sketched it out quickly and let it be. There's something about a 4B pencil that makes me giddy lol. I might color it later but for now here's my sketch.

just a nerdy side note she's wearing the pearl he gave her as necklace ;)

On a hilarious note, even if you don't want anything to do with the Hunger Games you have to watch this amazing version done with Beanie Babies! I'm not sure what's funnier their attention to detail or the fact that it's Beanie Babies! If you want to laugh you need to watch this
Ok officially done geeking out over hunger games. Thanks for bearing with me.